How to respond to a subpoena from Celestial and Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver (Copyright trolling) August 10, 2012

Celestial Inc. Lawsuits and Subpoena Defense

Celestial, Inc. is a company that files copyright infringement lawsuits against numerous John Doe Defendants in the same complaint. Most of these lawsuits are captioned as Celestial, Inc. v. Does (insert numbers) initially. The allegations in these cases is that you, the John Doe defendants downloaded the Plaintiff’s porn movie via a torrent client.

Celestial has pursued its lawsuits in many different Federal courts across the United States. Your first indication that you have a problem here is when you receive a letter from your ISP regarding a subpoena from Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver (or possibly another firm) that represents Celestial. All they know is that your ISP downloaded their movie and they need your ISP to provide your subscriber information. Your first thought at this point may be to call Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver to explain the situation or get more information. Of course, they will take your information and therefore, they now know who you are.

Once they know who you are, they will replace one of the John Doe’s with your name and then serve you with the lawsuit. At that point, your back may be against the wall.

Of course, this entire process has a name: Copyright Trolling. Here’s how this works. Most people using torrent clients are young males, most of which may be in college or have graduated college. While they may not have a ton of money, the fear of a judgment or even a prosecution following them around. Thus, lawsuit notices will make them very upset. However, many may not have the ability to hire a lawyer (or at least that’s what they think). Furthermore, it may be difficult to even find a lawyer that knows what to do with this case. In an attempt to settle the case, the law firm will make a demand to each defendant. Fearing huge legal bills, a large judgment and even possible prosecution, many defendants will opt to just pay a good amount of money to make the problem go away; sometimes in a payment plan. As you can see, this is a really nice business model assuming you have no soul of course.

If you think that you may be involved in a Celestial lawsuit, you should call a defense lawyer ASAP before you say or do anything. Call us anytime to discuss your case at 732-773-2768.